Chinese billionaires and elites are increasingly using the United States’ permissive surrogacy system to have large numbers of children—sometimes dozens, or more—according to allegations made in Chinese media.
The surrogate children become U.S. citizens through birthright citizenship.
According to Chinese media, Chinese gaming company Duoyi Network released a statement on social media disputing a report from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) saying that Xu Bo, Duoyi’s founder and chairman, fathered potentially more than 100 children in the United States via surrogacy. The statement said that Xu “only had 12 children in the United States via surrogacy.”
Xu’s company later issued a statement on social media acknowledging that Xu had more than 100 children born via surrogacy in the United States.
WSJ cited court documents saying that in 2023, Xu petitioned a Los Angeles family court for parental rights over four unborn children. During the proceedings, the judge determined that Xu was already the father—or in the process of becoming the father—of at least eight children through surrogacy.
Xu, who was in China at the time, appeared at a closed-door hearing by video. Through an interpreter, he reportedly told the court he hoped to have more than 20 U.S.-born children and expressed a preference for sons, saying boys were better suited to inherit a family business, according to WSJ’s account of the hearing.
Xu said the children were being raised by nannies in the United States while awaiting travel documentation to China. He told the court he had not yet met the children due to his work commitments.
Amy Pellman, the judge overseeing the case, reportedly ruled that surrogacy is intended to help people build families—not to facilitate large-scale reproduction beyond the scope of ordinary child-rearing. In a rare move, she denied Xu’s parental rights petition.
The Epoch Times cannot independently verify the details of the court case because such family court proceedings take place behind closed doors and are not published.
Xu was a former senior executive at China’s online gaming giant NetEase. His personal fortune has been estimated by Chinese media at roughly 28 billion yuan (about US$3.9 billion).
Claims About Scale of Surrogacy
The case has drawn renewed attention in China following social media posts by Tang Jing, described in Chinese media as Xu’s former girlfriend. In a post published on Weibo in November, Tang alleged she had helped raise 13 of Xu’s children in Japan, including two daughters she said were born naturally to the couple and 11 children born through surrogacy using donated sperm.
Tang alleged that Xu had “no fewer than 300 children.”
